Lightning Crashes
by bigskydreamin
Summary: AU diverging from pilot. Scott met Peter before Derek arrived in town, changing everything. He ran away not long after, to prevent Peter forcing him to hurt his friends and family. Two years later, Noshiko Yukimura seeks out the True Alpha and his pack in New York to protect her daughter from an old enemy.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Diverges from canon right after Scott was bitten in the pilot. This story pulls from all four seasons of canon, but incorporates things in different but familiar ways. I'm putting a trigger warning here for the whole fic, as it will contain references to and discussion of an offscreen non-con situation between Scott and Kali that is highly relevant to the overarching plot. (The situation was NOT initiated by Scott, just to be perfectly clear.)

**Chapter 1**

New York City streets were difficult to navigate in the best of circumstances. More so in the midst of a torrential downpour, while seeking a place not on any known map. Rain came down in heavy sheets of cold, wet misery, painted a baleful orange by the glow of streetlights. The few pedestrians still homeward bound hustled towards centrally heated brownstones and low-rise tenement buildings. Heads down and skittering across the pavement, they framed a stark contrast to the lone Japanese woman striding through the dark.

Noshiko Yukimura turned a corner without even a glance up to check the signposts. It would have made no difference anyway - these streets were wholly unfamiliar to her. The last time she'd been in this part of town, it had all been forested woodlands. Her only road map this night was the silent thrum of energy cascading outward from some nearby source, each pulse timed to the rhythm of her own heartbeat.

A very nearby source, she realized suddenly. Noshiko paused, waiting for the next ripple of energy to rush over and through her. She retraced her steps half a block once it did. A soft ceaseless crash of raindrops on asphalt muted the normal cacophony of city nightlife. The shadowed alley she entered swallowed even that. All that remained was the slow dripping of the roofs' gutters. Her footsteps left no echoes.

"Hey lady, you lost?"

She ignored the man hunched by the dumpster in a leather jacket two sizes too big for him. Swept her eyes instead down the length of the alley, graffiti-stained concrete flanking a bare brick wall at the far end; a lone lamp above the dumpster washed any hint of color out beneath a sickly yellow haze. Nevertheless, the tug she'd followed three miles across town ended in this singularly unimpressive locale. The pull on her spirit had vanished the moment she'd stepped into the alley.

Noshiko sighed. It wasn't that she was in any way surprised by her surroundings, but she could admit to being a tad disappointed. It'd been over three hundred years since she last had cause to seek out Herne. Was it really too much to hope for that his tastes would have evolved even slightly since then? All that power, utterly wasted on a boor with no sense of theater whatsoever.

"Yo lady, I said, are you lost?"

No, you asked, not said, Noshiko corrected as she finally turned her attention towards the man lurching her way. She winced a moment later. Oh mother Inari, marriage to an academic was clearly taking its toll.

With pale skin and greedy eyes atop a scraggly brown beard, he shambled towards her with a peculiar kind of stutter step that reeked of bravado. If she was about to endure something as unbearably tedious as a mugging right outside of Herne's establishment, she was going to have words with her old friend. And not the ones she'd already intended.

The degenerate stopped short of her though, eyes squinting first before widening in surprise. "Hey, why aren't you wet?" He peered around her in search of a nonexistent umbrella, raked a second look up and down her perfectly dry black ensemble. Stumbled one bravado-free stutter step back. "You're not wet. Not even a little."

Mortals. Place a supernatural amongst them with claws and fangs bared and they'll chalk it up to unseasonable Halloween festivities. Give them one odd, inexplicable detail to fixate on, and they're running for the hills.

"It's an easy enough trick, if you know how," Noshiko said. She allowed the barest hint of her amusement to elevate the corners of her mouth, then spread her hands wide. "Would you like to see another?"

Magic uncoiled slowly in her gut, a long-slumbering dragon blooming forth from her belly. It peeled shadows from the walls and swept up steam from the grate in the ground a few paces distant. Wove them together in a twisting mess of gaping jaws and sinuous intent that loomed above her and between them until he was scrambling, falling backwards into a puddle, crab-walking through the mud and gravel. Only then did he find his feet and race off into the night.

A flick of her wrist banished the illusion and settled her magic back into the pit of her stomach. It did nothing for her unease. She remembered when that sort of thing used to be fun, the effortless whimsy of glamours that could put entire Faerie Courts to shame. Now it felt akin to pulling a muscle. She'd grown…rusty, to adopt a modern colloquialism. The past two decades had made her far too complacent.

It had felt so harmless at the time. The novelty of a stint in suburbia had appealed to her, just one more game of dress up in a long, long lifetime dedicated to staving off boredom in any way possible. It'd been the 90s. It was either that or the grunge movement and frankly the latter had just seemed exhausting.

But then Ken had wanted a child, and she was so enamored of him and his calm acceptance, his endless curiosity. And it had been so long since she'd last dared to try, last hoped that this one might be different, this one might last. Might be eternal. Like her.

And now. And now Noshiko didn't know what she'd been thinking. How she could have possibly allowed herself to be so naive, to become so attached? She knew better, or at least she'd once known better. But here she was, practically useless in her present state and reduced to begging for help from wolves of all creatures. She could not bury another child. It had been three hundred and fifty years since the last time, but she was not ready.

Even an immortal can be crushed beneath the weight of enough mortality, no matter that its not her own.

Noshiko stalked towards the end of the alley. A plain red door had appeared in the far wall once freed of the presence of human eyes. It hadn't been hidden by illusions previously so much as it had simply…not existed. It wasn't a place for humans, but any supernatural being in the city could let it find them if they cared for it to. And right now, Noshiko cared for it to.

She cared too much. That was the whole damnable problem.

Her knuckles conveyed her frustration when they rapped on the door. The djinn they conjured conveyed nothing. His skin gleamed like burnished copper, backlit by the glow of unseen braziers where it peeked out from under his T-shirt. Even the air around him grew dry and parched, and had Noshiko allowed any of the rain to touch her, it would have effervesced from the mere heat of his presence. At least Herne's staff understood theater.

Noshiko let her eyes fill with foxfire. The djinn stared back impassively.

"No violence is allowed within these walls," he said at last. His voice was the rasp of desert winds across ruins. A nice touch.

"None is intended," she assured him. There was an uncomfortable pause as he stared straight through her, viewing her heart's fire and weighing the sincerity of her words. She fidgeted for the first time in decades. The problem with djinn: they saw too much and gave away too little. Finally he nodded and stepped back. The door swung soundlessly open. Noshiko shrugged off her overcoat and tossed it at him as she passed.

"My thanks. Be a dear," she threw over her shoulder as she walked into the club, gratified by the faint shock that flickered across his face. Served him right for staring too long at her intents.

The door closed shut and a wall of sound buffeted her, courtesy of the siren crooning out a power ballad from the stage. It took her a moment to find her bearings. The club - far larger than the spatial limitations hinted at from outside - was packed wall to wall with a crowd that appeared to stretch from their late teens to late twenties at most. But when dealing with the supernatural, 'appearances can be deceiving' is a truism, not just a platitude. She didn't look half a century of her own nine hundred years herself.

And no one here was human.

Noshiko breathed in deep, allowing herself to drink her fill from the well of power saturating the room. There was more of it within these four walls than she'd been exposed to in the entire last twenty years combined. It was enough to make her dizzy, almost intoxicated from the sensations of being this close to this many beings all reeking of magic and the supernatural in their own ways. She could lose herself in a place like this.

Possibly why she'd spent so long avoiding it.

Probably why she shouldn't have. Growing roots was for trees.

As far as epiphanies go, that one came far too late, and so she threaded her way through the crowd. Hobgoblins and barghest on one side, a trio of encantado on her other. Two sylphs blew across her path like tumbleweeds, all streaming blond hair and long limbs tangled up in one another. She found her first wolf lounging on a couch on the far side of the stage.

Young, male, hair an undecided mix between brown and red. A naga on his right arm, forked serpent tongue teasing his ear; an undine on his left, flowing up and around the side of his body as though a river forming itself to the contours of his shore. Even amidst his flirtations, the young wolf's eyes never stopped tracking across the room, every now and then flickering a cold shade of blue. They paused on Noshiko, visibly registering her as someone worth noting before moving away. Interesting. And perceptive.

Her own eyes kept to an equally steady search across the room, settling on a small gathering of tengu where they clustered around a table. A girl held court at the center of them - light brown hair and flushed red cheeks, head thrown back as she downed another shot with a yip of victory. Her admirers celebrated her with a rousing cheer. Not a wolf, that one. No doubt the coyote that was said to run with their pack. Laughing, the girl tossed her hair and cast her eyes in Noshiko's direction. They flared vivid blue as the girl dipped her head with a smirk, one trickster's greeting to another.

The push and pull of the gathered multitudes didn't allow one to remain stationary for long. She let it catch her up and sweep her past the two teens, carrying her to the back of the room. The stage drifted past, a raised dais of shining steel and chrome that dominated the central space. Three men on guitars and a four armed drummer were massed behind the petite blond siren claiming the spotlight. She wore tattered jeans and a black T-shirt that screamed ODYSSEUS CHEATED in garish pink letters. Her face screwed in a vicious snarl at odds with the melody resonating up to the rafters. Its power was blatantly seductive, unearthing long buried heartstrings and yanking them with a total lack of subtlety or finesse. The moment her magic felt Noshiko's attention captured by the song, the room dropped away, replaced by fields of white. The temperature plummeted, the air crisped with the promise of snow, and it was as though Noshiko had never left the mountain she'd first called home. In the span of seconds, her head and heart contrived nine centuries worth of false memories, all centered around a sense of static contentment.

Rude.

Sufficiently rattled, Noshiko pushed her way free of the crowd and up to the far back wall. Perhaps there was more reason than one she'd kept herself from places like this for so long. But this trip wouldn't be for nothing. There was the alpha, behind the bar just as she'd been promised. As young as the two from his pack, but with a bearing to his shoulders that belied his youth. He poured draughts from the tap, efficiently shuttling two beer steins down the length of the counter even as he kept his attention on the kallikantzaros settled atop of a stool in front of him.

She hung back to study him further, preoccupied as he was with his customer for the moment. The diminutive brute snarled something and flailed long, hairy limbs, almost falling from his perch. In response, the young alpha planted his arms wide on the bar and leaned forward, speaking firmly but low enough that even enhanced senses couldn't separate his words from the chaos around them. Whatever he'd said, it was nothing the drunken wretch wanted to hear. He raised on his hind legs and seemed poised to climb on top of the bar when the alpha slammed his hands audibly against the counter. His eyes flashed blood red and he let out a growl that cut straight through the music. All noise and motion ground to a halt, save for twin answering growls echoing from further back in the room. Noshiko didn't have to look to know the wolf and coyote were on their feet, their own eyes a bright shining blue. She did wonder idly if there was ever any need for the djinn bouncer to manifest within the bar, and if not, how that affected his benefits package.

The kallikantzaros wilted under all the attention, though she had a suspicion he wouldn't have been keen to continue his protests even if he were only faced with the alpha's red glare. Dropping from his stool, he scuttled off into the shadows, and the club's merriment resumed without skipping another beat. Nothing they all hadn't seen many times before, no doubt.

Noshiko swept in to take the empty seat before anyone else could stake a claim. The lingering stench wrinkled her nose despite her best attempt at decorum. "A kallikantzaros who can't hold his mead," she said as she settled herself comfortably. "Now there's a cliche."

The alpha had moved on to polishing a row of empty glasses, and he quirked his lips in a smile. Despite his best attempt at decorum as well, she suspected.

"There are worse ones he could be," he said. "What can I get you?"

"Actually just a few minutes of your time, if you don't mind. Not without compensation of course." She drew a flush envelope from inside her jacket and slid it across the bar. "Hopefully five thousand will be sufficient."

The werewolf froze and flicked his eyes from the envelope to her before resuming his chores at a much slower pace. Whatever good humor he'd regained after his confrontation had vanished in an instant.

"I think maybe you're in the wrong place."

"People keep saying that," Noshiko agreed lightly. "I assure you though, it's hardly ever true. You are Scott Delgado, correct?"

He nodded once, still wary. Wiped a dishrag along the length of the bar while studying her. "Can I ask who gave you my name?"

"I honestly couldn't say."

"Right."

It was a wonder she ever bothered to tell the truth. No one seemed to believe her even when she did.

"I know what their name was. But that was a good two hundred years ago and I never bothered to ask what they were calling themselves these days. I heard it from several sources actually. You're all any of us old folk seem to be talking about."

"Remind me to give my publicist a raise." Scott walked a crate of mugs to the other side of the bar without taking his eyes off her. Despite his obvious caution, she'd chosen the right approach. Her chatter was relaxing his tension ever so slightly, though he kept visible distance between himself and the envelope. No doubt to stave off even the presumption of temptation.

"So like a True Alpha," she mused under her breath, though of course he picked up on that as well.

"You sound like you're speaking from experience." He narrowed his eyes over a rising frown as he contemplated her. Crossed his arms over his chest, highlighting the twin black bands of a tattoo around one bicep.

"I may have known one or two in my time," Noshiko admitted. "Its been a long while since the last one I met though. That was…hmm, the sixties, I think?"

"I was told it'd been almost a hundred years since the last one."

"Such a sweet boy," she beamed at him. "I meant the 1760s."

That startled a bark of laughter out of him. Distrust still clung to him like a slowly dispersing fog, but his intrigue was obvious.

"Perhaps we can discuss that as well," Noshiko said. She tapped the envelope with a red painted fingernail. "I promise, I simply wish to discuss a possible business arrangement. Nothing illegal, nothing immoral. The money is yours whether you accept my offer or not, all I ask is that you hear me out."

"I'm well acquainted with the owner of this place," she added when he continued to hesitate. "Herne will vouch for me, and you must know that's not a claim anyone would make in here if it weren't absolutely true."

"You mean Henry," Scott said.

"Of course I do," she agreed, and refrained from rolling her eyes at the hulking behemoth eavesdropping in a booth across from the bar. Honestly, what was even the point of hiding his true nature if he insisted on remaining the most conspicuous person in sight at all times? Henry. Absolutely ridiculous.

Still, her name-dropping served its purpose, and the boy nodded, decisively this time. "There's a back room through that doorway over there that we can use. I'll meet you there in a minute." Scott gestured at a gloom drenched corridor before drawing the attention of one of his coworkers. "Tania, I'm going on break, watch the bar?"

A brown skinned dryad in a mesh tank nodded at him, oleander blossoms shaking free of her leaf-green hair at the movement. Scott slipped by her and out from behind the bar, stopping by Herne - no, Henry's booth. The envelope of cash remained exactly where she'd left it on the bar top. Noshiko sighed, and scooped it back into her jacket. No sense in leaving it lying around for someone else to pocket. Honestly, if she didn't have desperate need of it, she'd find such unflinching moral fortitude incredibly dull. What were they teaching children in school these days?

It came as no surprise when the other young wolf and coyote fell into step on either side of her while making her way to the backroom. (Though she could have done without the boy's attempt to see down her shirt.) Noshiko cast a glance over her shoulder before following them down the darkened corridor. Scott still stood by Herne's booth, but his attention was on the stage. She wondered what he saw when he allowed the siren's magic to do its work.

The three of them had just set themselves down in identical red high-backed chairs when Scott joined them. He took a seat between his two packmates, directly across the small round table from her. The air with which he regarded her was endearingly serious, and she suppressed an inappropriate smile. The venue and occasion brought to mind a few scattered memories of the 1920s, forcing her to fight off a wave of nostalgia. Ahh, now there had been a decade to remember.

"This is Aiden, and Malia," Scott said, indicating the wolf and coyote flanking him. "And I'm sorry, I never caught your name."

"Noshiko Yukimura."

"So you're a kitsune," the other boy - Aiden - said bluntly. She allowed an eyebrow to raise in mild surprise. Her aura was far too controlled to reveal her nature without her knowledge.

"What gave me away?"

"It was a lucky guess," Malia said. "You're Japanese, and he's kinda racist."

Aiden scowled at his packmate. "Bite me, Coyote Ugly."

"Get neutered first."

Scott held up a hand and the two quieted, shifting back into their seats. The boy with more of sulk than the other. "I'm sorry. They don't get out much."

Malia snorted and blew a lock of hair away from her eye. Noshiko bit back a smile at their charade. Oh, she had no doubt their antics were rooted in their youth, but they were not nearly so young as they played at here. Not with the way their eyes never quite relaxed even when casting jibes at each other, with how one of the three always kept their attention trained on her while her attention was on the other two. Their contemporaries probably fell for it often enough, seeing the inexperienced children they wanted them to see. Her own youth, however, had been in a time when twelve year old emperors ruled the world and child brides were led home by their husbands upon the first advent of puberty. She knew how little the candle of age mattered when next to the fire of actual experience.

And there was fire in these eyes. All three pairs burned when they turned to her as one.

"Now, I'd like to hear this pitch that was worth five thousand dollars just for the chance to make it."

"Five gee's, are you kidding me?" Aiden leaned forward. His eyes gleamed, and not for supernatural reasons. "Damn, Scott, why are you the one always getting Indecent Proposal-ed by older women -"

He silenced himself, jaw snapping audibly shut. Noshiko didn't get the reference (all pop culture tended to blur together after a few centuries) but made a note to look it up later based on the effect it had. Malia had risen half from her seat, fangs visible and growling at the pale beta wolf, who looked like he was about to sink through the floor. Scott had gone completely rigid, an impenetrable wall slamming across his face and locking back any hint of emotion.

"That reminds me." Noshiko spoke into the uncomfortable silence, not quite sure what had been said but with a suspicion as to its significance. She drew the envelope back from her jacket and tossed it onto the table, a peace offering and distraction all in one. "You left this on the bar."

Malia took the bait and pounced on it, riffing through its contents with unabashed glee. Her alpha frowned and made to reach out towards it, but the coyote snatched it out of reach.

"You, I will bite," she warned, and a weight tangibly lifted from the room when Scott closed his eyes and shook his head, smiling. The beta wolf finally straightened, color returning to his face though he still cast apologetic glances towards the other boy.

Now that had been no performance.

"The business you wanted to discuss," Scott finally prompted again, when the silence tarried too long.

Noshiko pursed her lips and produced a slim folder. Flipping it open, she slid a photograph across the table. All three leaned in to study it without a word.

"This is my daughter, Kira," Noshiko said. "She's eighteen, a student at St. Margaret's Academy in Manhattan. I'd like to hire you and your pack to protect her."

"Not really our scene," Aiden said doubtfully. "Is this like, an added security detail for her super sized birthday bash kinda thing, or protection from someone in particular?"

"The latter."

"Yeah, we're going to need more than that. Right, Scott?"

The alpha said nothing for a moment, still studying the photograph. Malia and Aiden exchanged glances before turning back to her.

"Yeah, we're gonna need more than that."

Noshiko studied her fingers, laced together on the table in front of her. This was not a conversation she'd looked forward to having, for all that she'd known it would be inevitable.

"A long time ago I made an enemy of another of my kind, though a different type of kitsune than myself. This one was a spirit of the Void, a nogitsune," she explained. Scott raised his eyes, head cocked to the side. Probably listening to her heartbeat, trying to discern a lie. That trick had never been particularly effective where tricksters such as herself were concerned, but he didn't need to know that.

"I eventually managed to strip him of his corporeal form and trap him in a prison of sorts. This was over seventy years ago, and should have contained him for seven times that with ease. But somehow, I'm honestly not sure how, he has managed to break free. And he has made it…known to me, that he is within reach of my daughter, and means to use her to seek his revenge on me."

Noshiko took a breath and spread the rest of the folder's contents across the table. Class schedules, friends, emails, texts, every piece of her daughter's life that could be captured in digital form. Some distant corner of her mind winced as Kira's specter railed at the invasion of privacy, let alone the indignity of sharing it all with complete strangers. But a living daughter was worth weathering the accusations of any number of guilt-born apparitions, and she ruthlessly quashed her misgivings as she continued.

"The nogitsune is a master of possession and illusions. He could have inserted himself into Kira's life by now in any number of ways, and I don't doubt that he has. I can provide means for you and members of your pack to attend Kira's school. From there, you'd be best positioned to figure out how the nogitsune has placed himself. And from there, destroy him."

Silence greeted her proclamation.

"Oh is that all," Aiden drawled. Malia made a moue of distaste.

"Ewww, school. I'm not going."

The alpha said nothing as he continued to pore through the contents of the folder. It took an effort to rein in the unease that was now making a resurgence. One would think nine centuries would be enough to teach anyone patience, but Noshiko Yukimura had never grown accustomed to waiting for anything. She was not a person one said no to. Certainly not a teenage wolf, even if he was alpha to a pack of runaways and delinquents. Resentment blossomed and spilled a bitter aftertaste into the moments steadily ticking by. Supplication apparently was not a look she wore with dignity.

Of all the things she had considered when plotting this course of action, she had not considered he might say no.

"I've had nine centuries to amass several lifetimes' worth of wealth," Noshiko said, forcibly calm and free of any ire. "I can easily ensure you never want for anything after this. Just do this one thing for me."

"Do me one little favor, said the ancient supernatural being." Aiden rocked his chair back on its hind legs, pondering. "That's never ended badly for anyone."

This time, a snarl almost escaped her. The wretched little beast had the gall to smirk.

"Why us?"

Scott's question startled her, so timed as it was to the rhythm of her internal tirade that she actually wondered how much he really did perceive from her scent, her heartbeat. He watched her steadily, giving no clue to his own thoughts, and a measure of respect trickled back into her awareness. It had taken her three times as long as he'd been alive to craft as impassive a facade as he sported now. Perhaps it had been longer than she'd thought since she'd last encountered a True Alpha. She'd forgotten they tended to be as precocious as they were dull.

"You defeated this nogitsune before, trapped it in some kind of cage," he said. "What's stopping you from doing the same thing now?"

"I am not what I once was. Time takes its toll, even on immortals. Too many centuries spending magic frivolously. Too many spent hoarding it to the point of rot." Noshiko shrugged helplessly. "The power needed even just to ferret out the nogitsune's host would be more than I can afford to lose now."

She needed something to fall back on, after all. If worst came to worst, and she was all that stood between him and her daughter…she couldn't face him empty handed.

She would not bury another child.

"You're centuries old and apparently know all kinds of creatures as old and powerful as you," Scott persisted. "Why us? You couldn't find anyone else more experienced, more knowledgeable?"

"No one I could trust," Noshiko said. "I told you. I've known True Alphas. And I know the nogitsune. I know how he and I are alike - both tricksters, both deceivers. His greatest weapons are lies, temptation, guile."

"Other tricksters will always see the lie before the truth," she articulated slowly, glancing at the coyote. Malia stared back unflinching. "We take it for granted that all others lie as easily we do ourselves. And so in any given moment, we're absorbed in unweaving a tangle that exists only in our own minds."

Scott nodded thoughtfully.

"From what I've heard told about you, from what I've seen tonight, the nogitsune won't know how to approach you," she finished. "He will know how to lie to you, he will know how to hurt you. He won't know how to use you. Because he has nothing to offer you, nothing you want. All he has are lies."

"And you're not lying to me now," Scott said as much as asked. "Centuries old, a trickster by your own words, but I can expect that just because your heartbeat remains steady, you're telling the absolute truth, right?"

Oh, but this boy saw better than she'd ever imagined. Noshiko smiled ruefully. "I could lie to you, its true. I suppose all I can ask is that you believe me. How human of us, don't you agree?"

The alpha cracked a smile of his own, but his contained no more humor than hers.

"But we're not human, are we?"

"No," she said. She heard the note of wistfulness in his voice, saw the way his betas both ducked their heads quietly. This was as good a place to ply her trump card as any. "I know you have a son of your own. How one Alpha tried a different approach to securing the power of a True Alpha for her pack. The boy's mother -"

"We don't like to refer to her that way," Aiden growled.

"I usually just call her Dead Bitch Walking," Malia supplied.

"Oh I like that. Simple. Catchy."

Scott silenced them with a glance.

"Your point?" He asked. There was a noticeable edge to his voice, but otherwise his mask remained intact.

Noshiko spread her hands. "The nogitsune is not a foe I can vanquish on my own. Kali is."

He absorbed that silently. His eyes drifted back down to the photograph sprawled amongst the other contents of Kira's life.

"Your daughter. Is she human?"

"I don't know yet. Its years before I expected to know for sure."

She reached across the table and laid her hands atop his. Scott looked up, surprised by the contact and her breath caught ever so slightly in her throat. She hadn't expected how young he would look. Hadn't expected it to remind her of how young she'd been, when she'd born her first son so very very long ago.

How could it possibly still hurt this much nine hundred years later?

"Give me those years, young alpha, and I will see to it that your son gets the same. I swear it. No child should ever be hunted simply because of who their parent is."

"No child should ever be hunted period," Scott growled. She smiled sadly at his vehemence.

"Neither of us is powerful enough to make as grand a claim as that. Let's settle for what we can."

He nodded and reclaimed his hands, making another quick perusal of the file. "I'd like three other members of my pack with me at the school. You can make that happen?"

Noshiko straightened. And just like that he'd made a decision and on to business, eh? Ah, the speed of youth. His packmates shifted to attention at his sides.

"I just need names and ages to start. It will take a few days to get everything together."

"Myself, Malia, Brett and Liam," Scott rattled off. "Make Malia and I seniors, Brett a junior and Liam a sophomore. Just pick some last names yourself, less chance of pinging some profile somewhere. Even Delgado won't work if I'm going to be in some school database."

"I should be there too, or at least take Ethan," Aiden protested. "Liam and Brett will be useless. They're too busy comparing dick sizes to be any help ever."

Scott held up a page from the file. "You noticed the school uniforms, right?"

The other boy took one look and flopped back with a snort. "Yeah fuck that, I'm out."

"Seriously?" Malia groaned. "Okay, we need to ask for more money. Scott, make her give us more money."

"How do you get more than unlimited money?" Aiden asked. He looked at Noshiko for confirmation. She stared back, bemused. "That was what the deal was right? We all heard it? Unlimited money, basically. Can we get that in writing?"

The alpha shook his head, sighed and stood. "How do we get in contact with you?"

"Use this email address." She slid a business card across the table. "My husband is aware of my true nature and the nogitsune. Our daughter is not. We would prefer to keep it that way as long as possible, though of course if revealing the truth becomes necessary to ensure her safety, there's no decision to be made."

Scott nodded, gathered her file and pocketed the card, the other two rising beside him. "We'll be in touch then. I'm sorry to leave so abruptly but its getting late, and the club's shutting down."

"And you have a child and a pack to get back too. I understand."

"And you never came back from break," Aiden muttered. "Tania is gonna be pissed."

The two betas' banter trailed off as they drifted into the hallway. Scott lingered in the doorway.

"Where was the nogitsune imprisoned before he broke loose? Was he in New York this whole time?"

Noshiko shook her head. "No, my family and I only moved here a few years ago when my husband took a teaching position at Columbia. I originally buried the nogitsune beneath a druid's oak in a small town in California, back during World War II."

"What was the town's name?"

She blinked, taken aback by the unexpected intensity behind his question. "Beacon Hills, why?"

Tension thickened in the doorway around him as palpably as a sudden pressure change. There was something of significance at play here beyond what she could see, but she was at a loss as to what exactly that might be.

"And you have no idea how the nogitsune got free?"

"No. I don't see how it could have, based on the way it was imprisoned. My only conclusion is that someone somehow let it loose, perhaps knowingly, more likely not."

The alpha swallowed convulsively. His voice came out disturbingly hoarse. "How long was it in Beacon Hills, do you think? After it got free? Before it came here."

Noshiko shrugged. "I couldn't possibly venture an estimate. It could have been days, it could have been years. I'd be more inclined to guess the former. The nogitsune feeds on chaos. Its been content to bide its time here in New York, as it has a larger goal in mind. But in a place like Beacon Hills…"

She paused, contemplative. "Let's just say if the nogitsune had been inclined to tarry in Beacon Hills for any length of time, it most likely would have made the news."

Scott mulled this, though she had no idea what insight he hoped to glean from any of that. "Does any of this hold some significance for you?"

"Not at all," he said, visibly forcing a contrived farce of a smile to his face. It couldn't have rung anymore false if he had said it around a mouth full of fangs. "Its just you never know what information might be useful. Goodnight Ms. Yukimura."

"Good night, Scott," Noshiko called softly after him. She remained alone in the dark, the wan fluorescents overhead having dimmed automatically with his departure. Herne's not so subtle way of kicking everyone out, no doubt.

The True Alpha, a creature of much vaunted honesty and moral integrity had just lied to her. Why? To what purpose and what did it mean?

Or, she was forced to consider as her own words came back to haunt her, was she simply perceiving a tangle that existed only within her own mind?

Noshiko sighed and made her way through the darkness, out the hallway and across the large (now empty, echoing) main room. Only a few stragglers remained, the band packing up their instruments, a vodyanoy mopping up a spill in the corner. She emerged outside into the cold, brisk chill of the four am hour. Dawn was still a ways away.

She lingered in the alley, just beside the elusive red door that was sometimes there, sometimes not as the few still inside emerged one by one. They each cast her an odd look as they left. It wasn't the kind of place one hung around after the party ended.

She'd never much been one for introspection, else she might be forced to read some deeper meaning into that.

Finally, it was just her and the door. And then it was just her and Herne, no, Henry, his vast bulk filling up the space beside her. No one exceptionally noteworthy in this guise, just a large, overweight bald man in a thick black coat. Not noteworthy but always noticeable. He'd never learned how to be someone you overlooked. At least not the way he studiously overlooked her now.

Henry reached up to the corner of the door and peeled it away from the wall, the wood losing shape and dimension as it came loose, til it was nothing but a sheet of red fluttering in the wind. He rolled that up and the thick tube became a gnarled oak walking stick. The space the door opened to was banished for another day, back to wherever it was that unwatched places go. It would reappear wherever he decided to open the door tomorrow night, if he decided to open it at all.

"I keep meaning to place a NO LOITERING sign outside." Henry finally deigned to glance at her from beneath thick, bushy beetle brows. "Its just there's so rarely a need for it."

Noshiko tilted her head and smiled. "It would have been rude to come all this way and leave without even saying hello."

"No ruder than just showing up out of the blue after three centuries and roping my favorite bartender into one of your games," he sniffed. "Not so much as a phone call in advance."

"But Henry," she protested lightly. "How would you even recognize me otherwise?"

He shook his head and shuffled down the alley, leaning heavily on his walking stick. She offered her arm at his other side. He took it with a grumble.

"It's 2014, Noshiko," he said when they paused to allow him a moment's rest. "Not sure if you missed the memo, but it turns out the world's actually round, not just a big flat gameboard for you to move pieces about at your whim."

"The world's whatever we choose it to be," she countered. "You understood that once."

He snorted. "Follies of a misspent youth."

She pulled away as they reached the alley's mouth. He could call a cab from here, she thought, overwhelmed for a moment by the struggle it took him to sidle past her to the curb. We are none of us what we once were. Lightning flashed overhead, and for the briefest of seconds the shadow he cast loomed large and proud on hind stag legs, antlers branching from his head up to the sky.

"You've grown boring in your old age, my friend," was all she said. "Do yourself a favor and at least buy an aggressively inappropriate sports car. I'm told it helps."

She set off down the sidewalk through the rain, smiling ever so slightly when his voice rang out behind her.

"Always good to see you, Noshiko."

The sour note in his baritone declaring it anything but.

But then, if old Herne himself could pick up sarcasm at this late hour, there might yet be hope for all of them.

For now, dawn was coming fast, and she had moves left to make before this night was through.

And she hadn't even started baking for tomorrow's PTA meeting.


	2. Chapter 2

They took the rooftops home. The rain had settled to a faint drizzle, and it was quicker than following the maze of streets -

Okay, so it was a completely unnecessary werewolf thing to do. But when you possess superhuman speed, stamina and the ability to literally leap (small) buildings in a single bound, it just doesn't make sense not to indulge every once and awhile.

At least that's how Scott justified it, midair and four stories up. He landed on a warehouse rooftop, gravel scattering beneath his sneakers as he drove his toes down and transitioned smoothly from a crouch to a sprint. Crossed the length of the building in three swift strides and with a dip and a spring he was airborne again, sailing across a ten foot gap that brought him to a surface one story lower. Adrenaline burned through lingering misgivings from their meeting with Noshiko Yukimura, made everything sharp and clear and easy. Even if that only lasted as long as the brief run across the city.

"Parkour!" Aiden shouted from three blocks ahead, just as audible as the softly muttered 'idiot' from Malia, a pace or two behind Scott. He kept his laugh buried in his chest. It was never a good idea to take sides there.

The three of them set a brisk but comfortable pace, enough in sync that they required no communication to keep from falling too far ahead or behind each other. It took less than ten minutes to traverse the two miles from the club to the loft they called home. The building that housed it was a squat, ugly looking bit of brick and rotting wood, close enough to the harbor that they could hear the clang of buoys a half a mile offshore. Still, it was warm, and dry, and most importantly their landlord had owned the space since 1896. Which made the rent a freaking steal.

One at a time they dove through the window on the second floor of the building, landing lightly in the living space shared by their pack. Scott preferred to keep their comings and goings as unobtrusive as possible - they never knew who might be watching. As far as they could tell they were the only ones renting in the building. But as their landlord was a rather eccentric Sidhe of the Unseelie Court who showed up in mirrors the second they had a maintenance issue…it was hard to really be sure.

"Honey, we're home," Aiden sang out. He shook his head like a wet dog and splattered drops of water all around. The pungent scents of fried rice and kungpao chicken wafted across the room towards them. Scott's stomach growled.

"Nobody missed you," Ethan parroted back from the picnic table they'd assembled in lieu of a dining room. The Lesser of Two Evils must have only just beaten them home, tasked as he was with getting dinner after his shift working construction down by the docks. He was still in the midst of extracting a dozen or so takeout containers from sopping wet bags.

"Really? Chinese, again?"

Ethan rolled his eyes. "Relax, Scott. It's MSG, not wolfsbane. Not like it'll kill you."

"Not like a little variety would kill you either."

"Yeah, but…dumplings," Ethan said with genuine confusion. He speared a pot-sticker on a pair of chopsticks, presenting it as evidence that made his entire case for him. Scott was spared from countering such flawless reasoning when the four other members of their pack trampled heavily down the stairs.

The next few minutes were filled with shoving and cursing while they descended on the takeout like the pack of ravenous wolves they actually were. Scott pulled Carrie aside once the deceptively delicate looking blond finished filling a plate with garlic shrimp. God, all their noses were going to be useless within another ten minutes. Maybe he could ban Chinese food on the grounds of it making them too vulnerable to surprise attacks.

"How's Connor?"

"He's fine, Scott." Her smile was way more patronizing than was necessary, given that his question had been totally anxiety free. He was sure of that much. He'd been practicing. "He's been asleep for hours. I don't know if its just that his enhanced hearing hasn't kicked in yet or he's somehow built up an immunity to these morons, but either way I'm jealous."

Right on cue, Brett shoved Liam to the floor and raised a carton of orange chicken over his head in victory. The younger boy popped right back up, predictably red-faced and ready to go.

"You're such an asshole, that's mine. I always get that!"

"Yeah? What're you gonna do about it, Scrappy Doo?"

"Call me that one more time, dick weasel, and I will peel off your face and eat it."

"Stop recycling Aiden's old threats," Brett said. "It just makes you sound desperate."

"Hah! I'm quotable!" Aiden crowed around a mouthful of noodles. Carrie rounded on Liam, jabbing a shrimp-laden fork in the direction of The Greater Evil's entirely too pleased face.

"You see his ego growing before our very eyes? That's your fault. You did that."

"Stop talking about my swelled ego, Carrie. I don't care how obsessed you are with my penis, I'm not going to have sex with you."

"Ugh." She took a seat at the far end of the table next to Ethan. "Why couldn't you have strangled him in the womb?"

Ethan shrugged. "By the time it occurred to me, it was already too late."

At least they were all using their words instead of their claws this time, Scott comforted himself. That was progress right? Right. He pulled off his jacket and tossed it over the couch next to Malia and Diego - the latter carefully separating his fried rice from the carrots and peas mixed into it, the former poking her plate as though raw mice would have been preferable. Then again, with Malia that was probably true.

"I'm going to go check on Connor," he told her, grabbing Ms. Yukimura's file from the back of his jeans and dropping it on the couch. "Fill everyone else in, okay?"

"Yeah, sure," Malia said. "Wait, was that just touching your ass?"

Declining to dignify that with a response, he took the stairs to the loft's upper level. "Someone save me some broccoli and beef."

"Scott, no, we have to give all the vegetables to Liam," Brett called up after him. "He needs his leafy greens if he's ever going to grow up big and strong like the rest of us."

"I will kill you in your sleep, asshole."

Oh yeah. All the other alphas just wished they could have his pack.

The upper level was curtained off into three separate areas - drapes and bedsheets strung from the ceiling to give each other as much an illusion of privacy as superhuman senses would allow. Nearest the stairs was the small space that contained Diego's bedroll and the bunk Liam and Brett shared. Brett of course had long since claimed the bottom bunk, given that he was physically incapable of not being a douchebag to Liam. (Or if you went with Carrie's interpretation, he was totally in love with the younger boy and this somehow explained his behavior as well. It was hard to say. As the only one of them born and raised within a werewolf pack, Brett was the best at keeping his scent under wraps).

Next was Malia and Carrie's room. Otherwise known as Carrie's bed and the mound of pillows staunchly defended by Malia as being far superior to any man-made furnishings. It looked an awful lot like an eight year old's idea of a fort, but they all had the good sense to keep that to themselves. Aiden and Ethan used the pull out couch on the lower level, which left the last corner of the loft for him and Connor.

Scott slipped through drapes heavy enough to keep the light from his room and let his eyes adjust to the darkness. There wasn't much to see: his bed, a table for his laptop, a trunk of clothes. And then the crib against the far wall. The twins had scavenged it from some garage sale and then spent three days scouring it with every cleaning product known to man, and a few known only to brownies. Even now it still smelled faintly of bleach. Scott worried sometimes that it might be stunting his son's sense of smell, but well. He basically worried about everything having to do with Connor, so grains of salt were required.

He leaned over the crib and gazed down at the nine month old. Drifted a hand down to sweep a curl of black hair from Connor's forehead. His son stirred in his blankets but remained fast asleep. Like Carrie said, he did have an uncanny ability to sleep through almost any crisis. Maybe it was a trait he'd adopted out of necessity…the only way to reliably get rest given the chaos that had so often surrounded his young life. Scott tried not to think like that. That way lay guilt, and as Aiden was fond of lecturing him, that shit wasn't healthy.

Instead he just breathed in deep. Inhaling his son's scent and letting the rhythm of his tiny heartbeat relax him, the tension and uncertainty of the day evaporating into so much nothingness. Babies apparently were awesome stress relievers. Okay, no, that wasn't even a little accurate. They were tiny terrors who crawled into danger at every available opportunity and were obsessed with eating things they could choke on and every single waking second of his son's life left Scott consumed with the certain knowledge that this moment coming up, this one right here, this would be the one where he fucked up so monumentally that his appointment to the Worst Parent Of All Time Ever Hall of Fame was all but guaranteed. Though if he was being honest, that moment had actually happened before Connor was even born, but -

Oh, wait, nope, there was the guilt again. Dammit. Aiden could be right. He might possibly have a problem.

But it was easy enough to get caught up again in the slow rise and fall of his son's chest, once he allowed himself too. In rare instances like this, where it was just the two of them, no chaos, no danger, no getting ready to run to who knows where for god knows how long - just for a few seconds at a time it was possible to believe that he could do this. That they might be alright, and everything wasn't just…terrible.

And then of course a crash echoed from downstairs and the murmur of voices cut off into abrupt guilty silence. Because his pack. Was literally. The worst.

"Yeah, you just enjoy your sleep while you can, buddy," Scott said to his oblivious heir apparent. He quickly changed out of his soaking wet clothes into something dry. "They're going to be your problem someday."

He regretted his off the cuff quip by the time he made it to the stairs. Why had he thought that was in any way funny? It was bad enough that his life was the mess it was just from being bitten in the woods, but to be born into it like Connor, with no choice whatsoever? Especially if Kali and Julia had been right, and his power as a True Alpha couldn't be stolen even by another werewolf. That it would always pass automatically to Connor no matter how Scott died…

Okay, seriously, enough. If his brain could shut off for even two minutes, that would be awesome. So awesome. Get on that, brain.

Everyone was gathered around the couch downstairs. Kira Yukimura's photos and documents were sprawled all across the coffee table in front of them. Surprisingly, it was Diego who was sweeping up the remains of a lamp with a somewhat sheepish expression. Scott decided not to ask.

"So is this bodyguard deal going to be our thing now?" Brett asked. He was sandwiched between Carrie and Malia, deliberately placed as far from Liam as possible. "I could get into that. Suits, dark sunglasses, business cards. We could call ourselves Full Moon Security!"

"Right, because the full moon is when people would be most secure with us," Ethan said witheringly. Brett flapped a hand at him.

"Whatever, its a metaphor."

"That's not even remotely what a metaphor is. You're an idiot."

Scott made a note to talk to Ethan about maybe taking it easier on the younger beta. He'd been on Brett's case for months now, ever since they'd had to leave Denver in the middle of the night. Granted, Brett had screwed up. If he hadn't run his mouth off about how his Alpha was a True Alpha they could have stayed under the radar there another couple months at least, but still. People made mistakes and Scott found it hard to be too upset that one of his beta's biggest problems was taking pride in him. Now if only he could do that without painting a bullseye on all of their backs at the same time…

"This is a one time deal," Scott said before Brett could fire back. "If we do this right, our money problems will be over, and we'll have a powerful ally to help us deal with Kali's pack once and for all."

Nobody had anything clever to say to that. The mere possibility was enough to make Scott feel dizzy if he thought about it too much. Life without the constant threat of Kali and Julia and their pack, without looking over their shoulder, jumping at every shadow. They could finally find a real place to call their own. Maybe even go home…

"That said, I want everyone to be clear on one thing," Scott continued. It wouldn't do any of them any good to get caught up in fantasies just yet. "This is going to be dangerous. Yukimura was pretty vague about just what kind of threat this nogitsune is, but if she's as old as I think she is and so desperate she had to come to us for help, we shouldn't be underestimating it. If anyone wants to sit this out, I'm not going to hold it against you."

"Pfft, my middle name is danger," Brett said into the silence that followed.

"Your middle name is Eugene, you colossal tool," Liam muttered.

"Scott, we've been over this before," Ethan said. "You're an alpha of wolves, not a herder of sheep. If you say we're doing this, we're doing this."

And with that, all seven of them were looking at him, faces set in complete agreement. It took every ounce of self control Scott had to keep his own tidal wave of emotions contained. His pack might be a little rough around the edges, but he knew they'd go to the mat for each other every time. They'd proven it over and over again. Ethan was right. He just had to say the word and they'd follow. And…he didn't deserve it. The last time they'd all been looking at him like this, he got DeMarco killed. It was him Kali really wanted, him and Connor, and here he was putting them all in danger again just for his own selfish sake…

Aiden clapped a hand on his shoulder. "So what's the plan?"

Right. Okay. Scott focused his attention on logistics, rather than how annoying it was starting to be that Aiden could read him this well.

"Yukimura is getting four of us into Kira's school. It'll be me, Malia, Brett and Liam. I want one of us near her at all times. Malia and I will split her classes between us. Liam, it looks like she tutors after school so we're going to get you sessions with her. And she takes the subway home, but it'd be too obvious if we all took it with her so Brett, you'll match your commute to hers."

"Diego, Carrie, I hate to ask this of you, but I need you to watch Connor for me during the days now," he finished somewhat anxiously. Carrie rolled her eyes, and Diego just looked bewildered.

"Why would you not want to ask us that?"

"Scott, he's pack, not an obligation," Carrie said. She leaned forward to place her hand on his leg. Scott tensed, a fleeting second where his body coiled in on itself like a spring, but he forced his muscles to relax before she noticed. He wasn't quick enough to escape everyone's attention judging by the glances Malia exchanged with the twins.

"Yeah, uh, Ethan and I are pack too, last time I checked." Aiden feigned injury. "So what are we supposed to do? Are we invisible now?"

"I could work with that," his brother said right on his heels. His eyes glazed over slightly.

"You're picturing yourself in the guys' locker room right now aren't you?"

"Oh like you're not?"

"Not in the guys' locker room I'm not."

"I have something else in mind for you two," Scott said before they could get too carried away. "I need to check on a couple of things first though."

"Ooh, mysterious."

"I am intrigued," Aiden agreed.

"This might not be enough."

The quiet declaration cut through the banter and focused everyone on Diego. By far the most reserved member of their rowdy pack, the seventeen year old was easy to overlook. It didn't help that he went out of his way to fade into the background as much as possible. After eight months, the lines he drew between himself and the rest of the pack were still clearly visibly. Scott just didn't know how much of that was due to Diego's own views as a hunter's son and how much of it was just his assumption of how the others viewed him, even now. It wasn't that he doubted Diego's loyalty, or that anyone else did for that matter. He'd proven himself beyond a doubt. Even Brett and Carrie had never held his heritage against him despite their former pack's fate. But there remained a palpable distance between the young Calaveras and the rest of the pack, and Scott didn't know what to do about it. Hell, he didn't know if Diego even wanted him to do anything about it.

"What do you mean?" Scott prompted when the other boy hesitated under their combined attention.

"I just mean that you've got things covered at school, but what if the nogitsune isn't at her school? All of this is information her mom provided, and yeah, she's ancient as fuck, but what mom knows everything her teenage daughter gets up to or everywhere she goes?"

Scott nodded. "Well ideally between the four of us, one of us can become friendly enough with her to get access outside of school."

"That might take too long though."

He shrugged helplessly. "I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just not sure there's anything we could do to speed up the time table."

"You could ask her out," Carrie said.

Scott blinked. "What?"

"Its the simplest way to speed up 'access' to her," she elaborated. Scott was not at all comfortable with the implications of her air quotes. "She'd be safest with you, you're the best bet to sniff out the nogitsune, and if you're dating her you have the perfect excuse to spend time with her off campus and in her usual hangouts."

"And what happens when I ask her out and she says no and then avoids me so she doesn't feel awkward?" Scott asked, pointing out the obvious flaw in the plan. Carrie just gave him a look.

"Scott, she's not going to say no."

"Well okay, I guess she might not, but its still a risk I don't think we should take."

She threw up her arms in exaggerated exasperation. "You're right Scott, you're only hot, sweet, and responsible. Every high school girl's worst nightmare. Totally not dating material."

Scott blinked again. Maybe he was developing a twitch. "Umm, thanks, I think?"

"Nah, Carrie's right," Brett said. "You could totally seduce her face off."

"I'm not seducing her," Scott growled. His vision flashed red, and out of the corner of his eye he caught the twins exchanging yet another god damn look. He appreciated their concern in an abstract kinda way but he was really starting to get sick and tired of them treating him like a nuclear explosion waiting to happen. Was he the Alpha here or not? He didn't need the two of them and Malia acting like he needed to be protected from a few stupid words and touches. It'd been almost two freaking years ago. He was fine. Full stop. End of story.

"I'll do it," Liam said under his breath. He had his head propped on his chin as he leafed through various photos of Kira. Brett scoffed and leaned over to hold a hand above Liam's head.

"Didn't you read the sign? You must be at least this tall to ride this ride."

"Brett, enough!" Scott barked. Everyone quieted and the blond beta sunk back into the couch looking like a kicked puppy. In the sudden stillness, Connor's agitated cries rang out as loud and strident as a siren. Scott rubbed his face in his hands. "Nobody is seducing anyone. Kira doesn't know anything about any of this, and our goal is to keep her safe and deal with this nogitsune while disrupting her life as little as possible. We stick to the plan, and figure out a way to fill in the gaps as we go."

"You want me to go check on him?" Carrie asked softly. Her scent carried the bittersweet tang of remorse, but it wasn't her fault.

"No, I'll do it." He already leaned on her far too much where Connor was concerned. It wasn't fair to her, or any of them. Connor was his child, his responsibility. "Okay, everyone good here? We all on the same page?"

"This is the stupidest plan ever," Malia said, popping a piece of chicken into her mouth. "I haven't gone to an actual school since the 4th grade, and I was terrible at it even then."

"I have total faith in you," Scott said wryly. She snorted.

"That's not saying much. You have total faith in everyone. Its one of your most obnoxious qualities."

"I have other obnoxious qualities?"

She slanted a sly coyote smirk at him and sauntered off towards the kitchen. Well then.

"Alright. I'll be in my room obviously. Everyone do me a favor and try to keep the noise down until I get him back to sleep?"

A soundless chorus of nodding heads answered Scott's request as he trudged back upstairs to his room. Their earnest expressions lasted about as long as it took him to reach the upper landing, and he could actually smell the full-fledged food fight that erupted the moment his back was turned. No, seriously, he could smell it, tracking the scent trajectories of the various leftovers as they flew from one end of the room to the other. He sighed. At least they were doing it quietly.

Connor was waiting for him in his bedroom, standing upright in his crib and clinging fiercely to the side while he wailed. The scrunched up expression of misery on his face was like a sucker punch to the gut every time Scott saw it. It didn't help knowing that this was normal for babies, that it wasn't always indicative of anything in particular, it still just…hurt.

"Hey buddy, I'm sorry, did I wake you up?" He scooped the screaming baby in his arms and started rocking back and forth. Connor burrowed his face against Scott's chest without the slightest dip in volume, his small frame practically vibrating from the force of his crying. "Daddy's really sorry, he didn't mean to yell so loud."

The only reprieve from his son's wails was the slight hitch when he took a breath, filling his lungs to fuel his next eruption. Not that Scott could blame him. How often had he heard the same completely inadequate apologies from his own father when he was young? He tucked his chin atop Connor's head and contemplated. He'd been losing his temper more and more lately it felt like. It was easy to blame it on the stress of everything, the weight of everyone looking to him all the time, all his frustrations and feelings of inadequacy when it came to Connor. He could even blame it on the wolf pacing restlessly inside him or wonder if he'd inherited some of his own father's temper. Scott had plenty of options when it came to pointing the finger somewhere, but problem was he didn't want to know what to blame for it. He just wanted to know how to stop it.

Connor quieted somewhat, but he suspected that was due to simple exhaustion more than anything else. His tiny shoulders shook with sobs and Scott had to resist the urge to squeeze him tighter. He reached down into the crib and grabbed Connor's favorite blanket, biting back a curse when he almost bumped his head on the unorthodox mobile spinning above it. It was an extravagant array of plastic with bits of iron, rowen, and rock salt dangling from each of its spokes, and Scott had nightmares of it falling and crushing his son in his sleep. He never would have allowed the damn thing anywhere near his kid, let alone hanging right above him, if Henry hadn't been so adamant that it could keep Connor safe from everything from faerie magic to a druid's seeking spells. Just one more compromise in a long string of them.

He was so fucking sick of compromises. Especially when it seemed harder and harder to tell the difference between compromise and failure.

Scott counted it as a victory when the scent of the blanket lured Connor away from his chest long enough to snatch it out of his father's hand. He shoved it in his mouth, something about the link between taste and smell at that age driving him to stuff his face full of whatever he decided smelled good (which seemed to be everything) and his eyes blinked sleepily. Bright, vibrant gold. Yet again Scott wished he knew what it meant that his son already had a werewolf's eyes more often than not. Was this normal for born werewolves, or did it have something to do with being the child of two Alphas? Brett had been one of the youngest in his pack. He'd never had a chance to learn what was standard for children of that age, let alone how they went about teaching kids that young control of their shifts. And it wasn't like Scott was going to be able to keep Connor hidden away from the rest of the world forever. At some point they were going to need to know they could take him out in public without worrying about his eyes flashing unexpectedly, or worse yet, him randomly sprouting claws or fangs.

Thank God those hadn't shown up yet. He had no idea what he was going to do when they did.

"Well at least your problems are solved for now," he told his son with a rueful shake of his head. Connor sucked contentedly on his blanket by way of response, the only hint of his previous mood the flush of red staining his dark cheeks. Scott settled them both at the table and booted up his laptop. "Now let's see if Daddy's victory streak continues," he murmured, pulling up Facebook. The autofill only needed one letter to know which page to take him to.

His mother had never used Facebook before he left home. (Ran away, Scott corrected himself.) He'd only randomly searched on a whim one day, and her page had popped right up at the top of the search results. Set to public view, visible to anyone, with postings at least once a week. He was ashamed of how long it'd taken him to realize it must have been Stiles' idea, only connecting the dots when he saw that Stiles' page had similarly been changed from his secure privacy settings to public view. But then, he'd been ashamed to think of Stiles at all, wincing every time he remembered the horrible things he'd said to his best friend. It didn't really feel like it mattered that it had only been to keep him away and out of Peter's sight.

In spite of everything he'd been through since leaving home, Scott still thought those first three weeks after he'd been bitten were the worst weeks of his life. Faced with his mom and Stiles' confusion as they tried to figure out what was wrong with him, afraid to utter even a single clue for fear it'd lead them to Peter. All too aware of the lengths the Alpha might go if he felt they threatened his hold on his 'investment', as he'd once called Scott.

_Dinner night with the Stilinskis_, he read on his mother's page. The photo of her, the Sheriff and Stiles had been posted two days ago. Scott breathed a little easier for the first time since meeting Noshiko Yukimura. Whatever had led to the nogitsune's escape from Beacon Hills, the three of them were okay. That was something at least.

"Look, its grandma," he whispered in Connor's ear, and his son glanced up at the screen. He had no idea how good a child's spatial awareness was at that age, but it felt like Connor's eyes lingered on the photograph. "And that's Uncle Stiles, who would never ever be left alone with you cuz that would literally be the plot of a disaster movie."

The joke slipped out without his even thinking about it, the kind of thing he'd said playfully a thousand times before. Except the Scott that would have teased his friend like that wasn't a Scott who would have a kid by eighteen in the first place. He wasn't sure he had the right to make a joke like that now, not with the space (and words) he'd left between them. Sometimes he liked to imagine that the Facebook pages were Stiles' way of saying 'I understand' or 'all is forgiven.' Other times he was forced to admit they might have just been a favor to his mom, a hand extended for her sake alone. He hoped three weeks of being a total shit weren't enough to outweigh eleven years of friendship, but it had only taken one bite to derail his entire life.

Scott clicked through to Stiles' page, bemused as always at the wall conversations between his best friend and his new clique. He had no clue how those particular friendships had formed. Allison Argent, Lydia Martin, Danny Mahealani - Jackson freaking Whittemore of all people. And then throw in the trio of Isaac Lahey, Erica Reyes and Vernon Boyd…stranger things had happened, he supposed, like becoming a werewolf for one. But not stranger by much.

They looked happy, at any rate. Stiles was always smiling in all the photos he was tagged in, same with Lydia and Allison and Danny of course. There was something a little off about the other members of their gang, but they couldn't all be photogenic. There was another brown haired girl in most of the pictures of them all as a group, but he'd never been able to place her and she was never tagged in any of the captions. He scanned the most recent one out of habit and froze. For the first time, the mysterious brown haired girl between Stiles and Isaac had a name.

_Cora Hale_.

Connor let out a soft whimper of protest. Probably picked up on a change in his scent - god, he was going to have to watch that. He bounced the boy on his lap and clicked the hyperlink on Cora Hale. Her page was set to private, no big shock. Scott ran a search for her name on Stiles' page instead.

Who the fuck was Cora Hale? Peter had only ever mentioned one relative surviving the fire besides himself and Laura, the Alpha he'd killed. Derek, he was pretty sure. Mostly he just remembered Peter ranting about his idiot nephew's visits to him in a coma, about his guilt-ridden confessions that it was his fault, that he'd been with Kate Argent and she'd only known when and where to start the fire because of him. There'd been an element of urgency to Peter's plans because of it - like he needed to reach a certain stage of them before Derek arrived in town hunting his sister's murderer. Scott had always assumed Derek was the one who'd killed Peter when word of his old Alpha's demise had reached them. Everyone who knew the name Hale had agreed that Derek Hale was his mother's son, he'd set things right in Beacon Hills and keep it safe. Scott had clung to that, desperate to believe that everyone he'd left behind was safe from Peter once and for all. That as long as he kept Kali and her pack away they'd all be safe from the werewolf madness that had consumed his life.

But now here was Stiles in a picture with a Hale. A Hale his own age, a girl who most likely was a werewolf herself.

Search results popped up. He scrolled through.

_Convinced Cora Hale to join Facebook at long last_ - Read a Wall post.

_Movie night with Cora Hale. I rented the Wolfman with Benicio del Toro. Haha, she's going to kill me_ - read another.

And finally -

_Stiles Stilinski is in a relationship with Cora Hale_.

What. The absolute. Fuck.

That had not been there when he checked last week. He would have noticed it. Jesus, Stiles was dating a werewolf. A Hale who had to be a werewolf, given the joke about the Wolfman movie…and the fact that Stiles knew to make the joke meant that Stiles knew about werewolves.

Stiles fucking knew about werewolves.

The photo tagged to the change in relationship status had Stiles kissing the side of her cheek. Her eyes were closed. It was kinda adorable, Scott registered in an abstract sort of way, but like…deep, deep in the back of his mind abstract kinda way. He clicked through most of the photos tagged with Cora Hale. She usually had her eyes closed, of course, to keep them from flashing - except there were a few where she didn't. Mostly group photos. That didn't make any sense.

Unless they were photoshopped.

And the second that registered, he knew what was off about the rest of Stiles' friends. Isaac Lahey. Erica Reyes, Vernon Boyd, Jackson Whittemore. Their faces were all photoshopped. It was probably Danny's work, he'd always been good at that stuff, which meant Danny knew about werewolves too. And no way the wolves didn't know about the freaking Argents, which mean Allison had to know her family were hunters and she was still hanging with their gang anyway…

Except no, it wasn't a gang or a posse or a group of friends at all, was it?

It was a fucking _pack_.

"Aiden, Ethan, Malia, come up here please," Scott requested softly, knowing they'd hear him anyway. It was about all he knew right now. Stiles knew about werewolves. Was in a pack of werewolves, even though he still seemed to be human himself. Same with Allison Argent, the daughter of hunters, whom Peter had tried so hard to make him seduce, or entrap, or whatever that fucking plan had been anyway.

Did Stiles know about him?

He had to be in Derek Hale's pack, right? Cora must have been one of his siblings, one Peter hadn't known had survived. But did Derek know his uncle had made a beta before he killed him? Had Stiles figured it out after he'd learned about werewolves?

Had he ever had to run away at all?

"Everything okay?" Malia asked, sounding uncharacteristically concerned when she peered through the drapes. Scott nodded and she, Aiden and Ethan slipped into the suddenly cramped room and took seats along the edge of his bed. Aiden leaned forward and tweaked Connor's nose, making faces and growling noises much to the boy's delight. Aiden had always seemed to be Connor's favorite of the pack. Scott tried not to analyze that too much.

They sat in silence for a minute - well, silent except for Connor's giggling. Aiden managed to combine a game of peek-a-boo with keeping a careful eye on his alpha, Scott noticed in a morbidly amused sort of fashion. Excellent multi-tasking. He'd give him a merit badge for it, if you know, they were a Boy Scout troop instead of a pack of runaway werewolves. His three betas seemed content to give him time to gather his thoughts. Problem was that ship had sailed. His thoughts were long past the point of any kind of coherency.

"The last time I saw my mom, I was half crazed on the night of a full moon," Scott said at last. All three of them snapped to attention, and yep, exchanged a fucking look. He didn't have the energy to be ticked off this time. Sides, this one was earned. It was an unspoken rule between the four of them; they didn't talk about things from before. True, they all knew things about each other the rest of the pack didn't. It had been just the four of them in the beginning after all. But they left it at that. They didn't have heart to hearts. They didn't monologue about the demons in their pasts. But he was the Alpha, goddammit, and he'd break the freaking rule if he wanted to.

"I was watching her standing outside the hospital on a break. Complaining about my behavior to the Sheriff on the phone. Peter was there. Goading me, trying to push me to finally make the kill, break my ties and become one of his pack. And I was close. I really…I was this close to doing it," Scott recounted. He closed his eyes, unable to ever forget that moment of sheer savagery, so wild and out of control and just done with the struggle to remain human that he almost did the unthinkable. "But he just couldn't help himself. And he made the mistake of making some kind of crack about my mom. I don't even remember what it was. And I…I snapped. And I bit him. He clawed at me, and the pain anchored me, and I just ran. Stopped by my house long enough to grab some clothes and money and leave a note saying not to look for me, and I just…took off, and didn't look back."

They knew all this of course, even if they'd never discussed it in words. Julia's damn spell had taken care of that, linked them for that one awful night and shared all their pain and painful memories between them, though they'd never actually figured out what the point of it had been.

"I've never second guessed that until now. I honestly thought I made the right choice. I knew Peter wouldn't hurt Stiles or my mom if I wasn't there. He never did anything without a reason, and he wasn't going to waste his two biggest ways of controlling me if he couldn't even be sure where I was to get the message. As long as I stayed away, they were safe."

"Scott, what's going on?" Ethan asked. Scott nodded towards his computer.

"Stiles knows about werewolves. He's part of the Beacon Hills pack, but I'm pretty sure he's still human."

"Fuck." Aiden blew out a breath. Connor giggled and the beta wilted under Scott's glare.

"If that ends up being his first word, we're going to have a problem."

"Part of a werewolf pack and dating a Hale," Malia said, examining the Facebook page. "Who knew he was so interesting?"

"Any idea how long he's known?" Ethan asked.

Scott shrugged. "I could probably hazard a guess if I spent some time looking back through his Facebook. In hindsight, there's a lot of jokes and comments between him and his friends that make a lot more sense if you're aware of the supernatural."

"But he definitely didn't know by the time you left."

"No." He was confident of that much. There was no way.

"So what do you want us to do?" Malia asked. The twins raised identical eyebrows at her bluntness. Scott wasn't sure why. It was Malia. "What? Is this a strategy meeting or a therapy session? Cuz if its the latter, I just remembered I have to go be bored somewhere else."

Scott closed his eyes, laughed, and shook his head. Whatever kind of moment they'd just had, it'd lasted longer than he'd expected. Baby steps, he supposed.

"I want you two to go to Beacon Hills," Scott told the twins.

"Umm," Ethan said.

"Seriously?" Aiden whined. "This is so not the super cool top secret mission I thought you had in mind."

"Noshiko Yukimura said she imprisoned the nogitsune in Beacon Hills seventy years ago. That's where it escaped from," Scott said. "I thought it was too much of a coincidence as soon as she said it, but now knowing that Stiles and a bunch of other kids I know from Beacon Hills are all part of the local werewolf pack?"

"It's starting to feel like the f-word." Malia wrinkled her nose. The two of them had similar feelings on the subject. Aiden, not so much.

"Fucking?"

"Fate, you moron." She dug a claw into his thigh and he yelped.

"It's starting to feel like we're being manipulated," Scott corrected. "And I'm very much over being peoples' pawn."

Ethan nodded, brooding. "Yeah, on that note. We're sure Peter's dead, right?"

Fuck. He hadn't even considered that.

"Kali seemed pretty convinced," Malia said. "Why would she lie about that?"

"Who the fuck knows why she does anything? You've seen her feet, right?"

"Okay, we're getting away from the point," Scott said, reining Aiden in. Kali's feet were among the things he was trying very hard to forget. "Speculation isn't going to get us anywhere. I think we need to know exactly what's been happening in Beacon Hills."

"So, you want us to just pop over to the other side of the country and check things out," Aiden sighed. "Any chance we can use some of that Yukimura lady's cash for a couple plane tickets?"

"Yeah, I'm not getting in a steel death trap 30,000 feet in the air with you the day before a full moon."

"Hmm. Valid. Fine, motorcycles it is."

"I wouldn't ask you to do this if I didn't think it was important," Scott said.

"It's cool," Aiden assured him. He smiled about as gently as Scott had ever seen him. "We get it."

Malia pursed her lips and tapped a clawed finger against her chin thoughtfully. "You know, it'd probably be easiest for you guys to spend a couple days at the local high school. Simplest way to sniff around this pack without their knowing. I bet Yukimura could probably fix you up with some fake transcripts same as us."

"You're a vile, hateful she-devil," Aiden told her. She smiled.

"Misery loves company."

"I liked you better when you didn't understand platitudes."

"Its a good idea," Scott said, considering it. "I'll email Yukimura tonight, set it up. We can say we thought we might find some clues as to its current host there."

"Which you might," Malia said cheerfully. Aiden glared and reiterated:

"Vile, hateful she-devil."

Ethan laid a restraining hand on his brother's shoulder and stood. "We'll get some rest then and hit the road first thing. If there is something bigger at play here, its probably better we figure it out before you guys make contact with this nogitsune."

"Thanks. Be discreet, we really don't want anyone else thinking we have reason to be interested in Beacon Hills," Scott said pointedly. Ethan nodded.

"We'll be careful."

"She-devil," Aiden glared one last time at Malia before rubbing Connor's head farewell. The boy snuggled into it briefly; he'd started fading and was close to sleep.

"Get over it. You might even have fun. The redhead looks exactly your type."

"No seducing anyone," Scott said firmly, when Aiden started to perk up a little too much. The beta sulked, and even Ethan frowned. "I mean it."

"Okay, but what if we do it accidentally?"

"Seriously Scott, look at us. We're naturally seductive. It just happens."

"That's like asking a swan not to be swanlike. Swannish?"

"No!"

"Fine," Aiden dragged out and stepped through the drapes. "He never lets us have any fun."

"We should go on strike," his brother concurred.

"Mutiny!"

"Ugh no, then we'd have to make decisions. Decisions are lame."

"Restraining our natural seductiveness is lamer. We're too gorgeous to be this single."

Chuckling softly, Scott walked Connor back over to his crib and laid him gently amongst his blankets. Malia watched him from the bed. Her eyes shone faintly in the dark.

"I have a bad feeling about all this," she said, quiet enough it probably escaped the rest of the pack's notice unless they were listening for it. "You should have told Yukimura no."

Scott hovered over the crib, watching Connor burrow back into the sheets. He had his own misgivings of course, and he'd learned never to discount the coyote's instincts, but…

"I couldn't."

She sighed. "Yeah I know. Its another of those obnoxious qualities I mentioned."

"I couldn't return to Beacon Hills before now and take the chance that Kali would catch up with us there - too many innocents that could be caught in the crossfire. But if there's even a chance Noshiko can really help us deal with her and Julia and her pack once and for all…"

He turned to face her, defensive despite her eternal lack of judgment. "Its time we stopped running."

"Hey, you don't have to tell me twice." She rolled her head back on her shoulders and slipped bonelessly off the bed. Smiling that damn Cheshire Cat grin she'd wear even through Armageddon. "I just wanted to get my I Told You So on record, since apparently that's the only way it counts."

Scott snorted a laugh. "No, Malia, that's not actually a thing…you know what, never mind."

She winked over her shoulder as she strolled out of the room. "Whatever you say, boss."

Scott emailed Noshiko Yukimura before he went to bed. Two days later she supplied an address where they found uniforms, IDs, textbooks and backpacks waiting for the four of them.

"Alright, guess this is it," he said to his assembled packmates. "Time to go back to school."

Malia prodded a bag with her toe, frowning at the plaid skirt that rolled out at her feet.

"I hate everything."

Notes: Carrie is the girl from Brett's pack that Garrett and Violet killed on the bus. DeMarco was the werewolf who delivered a keg to Lydia's party. Diego is an OC to round out Scott's initial pack, but no super special OC storyline with him, he's no more or less significant than any of the others in the pack. Next chapter: Kira!


End file.
